Thinkpads Forum

My old man says his T60's display goes out after several seconds. He says he can still see what's on the screen though, just barely.

Can anyone confirm that this is an inverter issue?

Does the lamp give a reddish tint when it comes on? If so, it's more likely the lamp than the inverter. He could probably turn the brightness down a few notches and get the lamp to stay on a little longer. But, it will continue to deteriorate until it won't come on any longer at all.

If there's no buzzing sound, then it's far more likely the backlight (CCFL) itself that is on its way out.

I asked him about that, and he states that there is no reddish tint.

Okay, so when it first turns on it IS red before it dies. Should I go ahead and buy a new CCFL panel? I found a replacement on Amazon for $80.

Is this a 14" or 15" LCD panel? XGA, SXGA+ or UXGA? If it's the last, $80 might be a fair price for a replacement panel. If it's XGA, I would not pay that much, but that's just me. You can replace just the lamp for about $10-15 in any of them, but that is a very tedious operation. I've done it once is a T60 LCD panel, and it came out OK, but not perfect.

Beware of "compatible" screens when it comes to T60 generation, unless you want to flash the EDID because you'll end up with a non-booting machine.

I'd strongly suggest posting a WTB (want to buy) ad in the forum's marketplace and obtaining a known genuine panel.

Not necessarily wanting to troll or revive an old thread, or to disagree, but I'm reporting this for future reference in case somebody else runs into this as T60 is showing its age through its components.
This issue is plaguing a T60 that came to my care yesterday and it has backlight turning off after a few seconds and the buzzing sound. And while there is a definite buzzing sound when it's on, it comes from the bluetooth card area. I changed the inverter with a different one, tested, and the same symptoms. Tested both inverters in another healthy T60 and it's fine: No backlight turning off, and no buzzing sound, so I will proceed to buy a ccfl tube and change it.

So my conclusion is that it's difficult (nigh impossible) to distinguish btw. an inverter failure and a ccfl-backlight tube failure without checking/testing - first inverter, than the ccfl tube. To be on the safe side you should either buy inverter together with a ccfl tube (290mm length and 2mm width - on the T60 14.1" standard screen) and if you care to change the ccfl backlight tube yourself (tedious as it may be, it's also cheaper) - or buy a new lcd/screen assembly with lcd (more expensive, but easier). But without testing it remains a bit of a guesswork.